Scrabulous Returns To Facebook, As Wordscraper 262
porcupine8 writes "Good news for those that have had a hole in their heart (and Facebook profile) since Hasbro forced Facebook to remove Scrabulous over copyright and trademark issues. The creators of Scrabulous have wasted no time in tweaking the game and have launched a new tile-based game called Wordscraper. In addition to changing the name, they have changed the board look so as not to directly copy the colors, etc of a Scrabble board, and have even made provisions for players to create their own board layout! Interested Scrabulous fans can add the application now. Only time will tell if the changes were extensive enough to keep Hasbro's lawyers at bay."
Re:Copyright broken (Score:5, Informative)
Not copyright. Trademark infringement [timesonline.co.uk]. Entirely different legal structure...
Re:confused (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Copyright broken (Score:5, Informative)
No, copyright too. You can't copyright the idea of how you play the game, but you can copyright the board artwork. Of course, you can significantly aletr the board artwork so that it's different enough to avoid copyright infringement without changing how the game is played. Most game ripoffs do just this.
Sadly, the Scrabulous guys didn't take this step, and they could still be facing a lot of trouble over that. The new game solves this problem - guess they finally bothered to care what minimal steps they needed to take to be legal.
Use this original Scrabble layout then... (Score:4, Informative)
http://apps.facebook.com/wordscraper/?action=newgame&similarto=54248 [facebook.com]
I know I'd rather play a real Scrabble layout on Wordscraper than to use anything else. Enjoy.
Re:Copyright broken (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody, just like Shakespeare and The Odessey. A basic familiarity with the law might help you here. Nobody ever filed for or was granted protection on those items, and if they had been, they'd be several thousands of years expired by now.
Brand recognition. People periodically try to replace Scrabble. It happens every several years.
This is primarily an indication that you don't know much about the games market. Games that perenially get copied include Uno, Sorry, Yahtzee, Connect 4, Mille Bornes, Scrabble, Rubik's Cube, Battleship, and on and on the list goes.
Perhaps you don't understand market forces. Clones aren't absent because they're illegal. They're absent because nobody buys them.
Re:Copyright broken (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, sure you can. You just can't steal their title or artwork.
I'd be a lot more inclined to take you seriously if you were at least getting the right branch of the law. This is not and never was a copyright issue.
No, that's patents. Copyright has nothing to do with innovation, and this is neither a copyright nor a patent issue. Please settle down until you have at least a basic familiarity with the laws or case in question. This is a waste of time.
Re:Use this original Scrabble layout then... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:single player (Score:4, Informative)
The Scrabulous [scrabulous.com] site has a practice version available which allows you to play by yourself or against a computer. I'm guessing Wordscaper will have the same thing once they fix themselves up.
Re:Copyright broken (Score:5, Informative)
You think wrong. It's not a copyright issue at all, and there is no time frame attached at all. The issue is that Scrabulous was a brand ripoff. Game clones are okay. Brand clones aren't.
Copyright and trademark are about as related as boats and cars. Please put more effort into debate. It's really annoying for a debate about cars to have people keep saying "but the problem is the water level in the lake." Trademarks do not, and should not, expire. It doesn't matter if Microsoft has been around for 80 years; nobody else should ever be able to claim to be Microsoft. This is a trademark issue because the company needs to be able to protect the brand. Scrabble clones can be released. Scrabble, the brand, is still S+R / Hasbro's property.
If you don't understand the difference between copyright/trademark, or between a product and a brand, you really need to stay out of discussions like this.
Re:Copyright broken (Score:3, Informative)
Because this is not a copyright issue, there is no sixty year timeframe involved.
As a game designer, I would like to remind you that in the eyes of the law, for a very good reason, game designs are not art.
Incidentally, Scrabble was clonable the first day it was released. You just had to use a different name and color the board differently. This whole thing you're on about is completely mis-aimed. The real problem here is just that Scrabulous was visually similar and had a similar name.
Spend less time worrying about what should or should not be, and more time understanding the situation correctly.
Re:Copyright broken (Score:2, Informative)
Arg... this is both. The Trademark issue is over the name, and the Copyright issue is over the identical board. The look of the board, unlike the rules of the game, CAN be copyrighted.
Re:Copyright broken (Score:3, Informative)
How about the artwork, colors, layout, and font?
Does the fact that they changed all of the above, as well as the name, indicate something about the issues at stake?
Re:Copyright broken (Score:4, Informative)
... and that's how the law works: don't protect your trandemark and you lose it, as happened with "escalator" for example.
Or, you can make chemical weapons for the losing side in a war and lose your trademark to the victor, as happened to Bayer with "aspirin" and "heroin". ;)
Re:is it just me... (Score:2, Informative)
...or am I the only one, this far down in the comments, to initially see "words craper" as the name of this app? Reminds me of the guy who named Titslinger who invented the bra.
I think it's just you. What the hell is a "craper"?